A Lethal Legacy (14 page)

"Now, that's out
of the way. I wanted to tell you both some other things. First, let me say,
that I also have loved Rick. We started out by me pushing him away like every
other relationship, but with him, it didn't work. He's like you that way, Ed. He's
stuck by me through this horrible illness that’s robbed me of every bit of
dignity I ever had. I wondered if he would leave me when I first found out.
Because you know, I'd heard the stories about partners leaving the minute they
heard. I honestly believe that he never thought about leaving. He's been a
saint."

"I will always
love him for that, Gary," Claire said.

"Do that, Mom.
Keep him in your heart. His mother won’t have anything to do with him, and I
think he could use a good mother in the next few months." Gary paused to
catch his breath for a moment.

"Almost everything
that I have saved in my lifetime has gone to my care. No one will insure an
AIDs patient. I have put aside a small amount for my funeral, and Rick has
directions on how I want that handled. All of my debts will be paid. Anything
left, I'm leaving to Rick for his undying devotion to me during the past year.
He hasn't worked and will probably have some difficulty finding something right
away. How does a grown man explain a year away from work on his resume?"

"I haven't left
anything to Kristina," he said. He looked for a long time at Claire who
met his gaze. "Mom, you must not let her take advantage of you or
Dad," he said.

"What do you
mean?" Claire asked.

"When I'm gone,
she will try her tricks on you two instead of me. I've mostly given in to her
demands until recently. Since she won't come in here and see me, Rick is under
strict orders not to give her any money when she asks."

"Kris needs
money?" Claire asked.

"Always. I’ve
felt guilty since she showed up here, and believe me, she knows how to play
that card, and I've given her what she's asked for. In fact, if I hadn't been
so generous, I would be leaving more money behind that could have been split
easily between her and Rick.” He paused to cough once again. We waited
patiently.

"But Kristina is
greedy. So be a good grandmother to her, but don't fall for her stories. Make
her stand on her own, Mom. Remember, you have nothing to feel guilty about so
don't let her use that against you. Trust me on this one point. If she finds
your Achilles' heel, she will use it." Gary's voice started to rise, and
his coughing began again.

"Gary, please
don't get upset. Of course, I'll watch over Kristina. Don't worry about that. I
think things will improve the longer she's away from that mother of hers."

"Promise me,
both of you, try to love her, but give her more than that. Give her the
strength to stand on her own without either of you propping her up."

"We promise,
Gary," I said. I could tell these last few words were said with all the
strength he could muster. "We'll help give Kristina what she needs."

With that, Gary fell
back against the pillow and closed his eyes. We quietly left the room, both
Claire and I wrapped in our own private thoughts. For Claire, hearing the truth
about her granddaughter probably came as a shock, but she would digest it and
deal with it. To me, it seemed the guilt that Gary had carried for the last two
decades left his body and floated away from him. Then it landed and perched
itself right on my shoulder. I could taste the bile rising in my mouth as I
realized that Kristina had already found my Achilles' heel.

He calmly
contemplated the amber bottle of pills on the table before him. He picked up
the container and caressed it with his right hand before carefully flipping off
the lid revealing the small round pills that promised him a final release if he
chose to take it.

Near midnight, Rick
came to wake me. He and Claire had been sitting with Gary who had not wakened
since we talked to him earlier. Rick called the doctor when he couldn't rouse
Gary for his evening meds. He also hadn't had to change his sheets all day nor
had Gary used the bedpan. The doctor informed Rick that most likely Gary had
slipped into a coma. He doubted that he would ever regain consciousness. He
told Rick that Gary's body was beginning to shut down. He also told Rick what
we could expect to occur in the next few days or hours, however long it took
Gary to let go.

After Rick explained
everything to me, my mind went back over our life together and as always, I
wondered if I could have helped Gary more. But then, I had my own troubles.
Although I never faced my own feelings as well as I tried to help Gary face
his.

I wanted to be
published so badly that I didn't think about the consequences of getting that
first book out in the market. I went ahead only slightly aware of the currents
flowing and pulsating all around me, first with Kelsey, and then with
Elizabeth.

Ernest Haslett liked
the book, but wanted to find a larger publishing house to handle it. He decided
to represent me, for a small fee, and I was flattered that he thought that much
of the book.

After Gary read the
book, he handed it back to me.

"Do you think I
need to change anything?" I asked him as he tried to avoid my eyes.

"No changes
needed," he said. He didn't say anything more.

By late 1975, Kelsey
had begun working even longer hours at Domino's. I didn't mind because when she
was home, she harped about buying a house that would be closer to the new
corporate headquarters now under construction. I liked the old house on Main
Street just fine. She hated paying rent. I liked the lack of responsibility for
maintenance. She hated not being able to take out walls and paint at whim. Some
days when she talked about changing the interior of our apartment, I felt I was
back in high school dating Sally, my first girlfriend, or remodeling the house
with Allison.

Then one night Kelsey
met Allison, my first wife, for the first time. Domino's had just announced its
intention to help Huron High School fund business classes in the coming school
year, and we were invited to attend the reception where the formal partnership
was announced.

Kelsey and I stood
near the food table talking to several of her colleagues when I looked up and
saw Allison enter. Since becoming principal, she wore tailored suits and silk
blouses, and every time I had seen her in the last six years, a string of
pearls adorned her neck. Very classic, very professional, and very elegant.
Allison's cuteness and perkiness had been groomed into what her parents wanted
her to be. She was a very handsome woman with an important job. However, I'm
sure her parents wished she’d remarried after our divorce, if for no other
reason than to change her last name from Townsend.

"Allison, hello.
You look lovely as usual tonight," I said as I leaned down to kiss her
cheek. We managed to remain cordial and warm with one another after the
bitterness left.

"Ed, good to see
you," she said as she looked over my shoulder at Kelsey.

"You've never
met my wife, have you? Allison, this is Kelsey. Kelsey, Allison Townsend."

They shook hands and
appraised one another.

"It is very nice
to finally meet you, Kelsey."

"Same here. I
thought you might be at this shindig since you're the big shot at HHS,"
Kelsey said as she popped a crab puff in her mouth.

"Yes, and you
are an up-and-coming executive at Domino's, correct? I can’t tell you how much
your support will mean to our school. If you had anything to do with it, I
thank you."

"It was really
Tom Monahan's idea. You know, wanting to help young kids get a chance for job
training. However, I sat in on the meetings and know how important it is. I
especially want to encourage the girls to become involved so they can see that
they really do have choices now in the work world. Just look at me," she said
with a wide grin as she beat her fists on her chest.

Allison gave her a
small smile, the Mona Lisa smile. No one can tell what she is thinking, but it
can't be good. "We encourage all of our students to become the very best
that they can be at Huron High. You will have to excuse me, I see some of my
PTA parents over there, and I must greet them. It was a pleasure to have
finally met Ed's new wife. And Ed, it is always a pleasure," she said
squeezing my hand and reaching up to give me a quick brush with her lips. None
of it escaped the glare of Kelsey's eyes.

"Sure thing,
Allison. See ya around," Kelsey said.

That night Kelsey
badgered me endlessly about Allison. She had never seemed too interested in my
first marriage before this meeting. Somehow lying in bed with my second wife
who wanted to talk about the woman I had divorced did not appeal to me or make
me want to make love.

"What's wrong,
Ed? Did seeing Allison make you less horny for me?" she asked when I
couldn't seem to get aroused after all of her questions.

"No, but you
talking about her endlessly has dampened my desires somewhat."

"I didn't expect
her to be so, I don't know, so sophisticated, so suave, so polished."

"Someone like
that would never marry me, right?"

"No, well, yes, I
guess so. You are pretty unconcerned with those things. But you always manage
to remain cool and calm in public so that no one would ever guess how miserable
you are in a suit and tie."

"Please, can we
go to sleep now? I've got a big day tomorrow." I pulled the covers up over
my head so the discussion and the attempt at lovemaking would end for the
night.

"What kind of
car did you two have when you were married?" Kelsey began as soon as I sat
down to breakfast the next morning.

"Who?"

"Who? How many
times have you been married? You and Allison, of course. What kind of car did
you have?"

"For god's sake,
Kelsey, let it go. It's not important."

"It's important
to me. What kind?"

"A Mercedes, an
old one. A hand-me-down from her parents," I said not wanting to look
directly at her.

"I see. What
about the house? I know you lived somewhere on the old west side. Where?"

"Near Huron and
Seventh. Behind those large Victorians."

"What kind of
house?"

"It was an old
colonial. There aren't very many over there, and her parents wanted to give us
the house for a wedding present. It needed a lot of work, and we spent most of
our short marriage redoing it. Allison still lives there." I decided to
give her what she wanted so maybe she would stop. "How come you never
asked these questions before?"

"Because your
first marriage never seemed real to me until I met Allison. So if my parents
were rich, would you let them buy us a house?"

"Never. I've
told you, I don't want the responsibility of a house. And I'd never want you to
hold it over my head that I couldn't afford to buy the house."

"But if you sell
your book, you'll get a big advance, right?" She hadn't asked about the
book in months.

"Not
necessarily. I might get a small advance, but it's doubtful. The book won't
make me rich."

"Or rather you
don't want it to," she said thoughtfully.

"Possibly,"
I said.

Thankfully, the
questions stopped there as I watched Kelsey slowly stir her coffee. I hoped she
would forget all about Allison and a house. She worried me lately as I watched
her changing before my eyes from the young college girl who cared about causes
into the successful executive who cared about the outward trappings of a
seemingly prosperous life.

Allison and I had had
very little contact with each other since our divorce even though we lived in
the same town and worked in the same profession. However, our orbits circled
around different planets. Allison cultivated and fertilized her relationships
with the business community with the help of her father. Probably the connection
with Domino's came from one such cultivation with Tom Monahan. Kelsey and I, on
the other hand, socialized with the art community and our friends from work,
hardly the same social path as my ex-wife.

However, Allison and
I did keep in touch. One of us would call the other once or twice a year just
to check on one another. For some reason, I never told Kelsey about these
calls. It never seemed very important to our marriage.

The day after the
awkward meeting, Allison called me at school and asked me to stop by the house
on my way home from work, even though it was slightly out of the way. She
wanted to show me something.

When I arrived, she
had already changed from the business suit attire of her workday into jeans and
a sweater. She looked young and perky once again, like the Allison of fifteen
years before.

"Would you like
a drink, Ed? I just opened this bottle of wine," she said.

"Sure, Ally,
that sounds fine."

We sat on the couch
that we had purchased together in our only year of marriage, probably the first
major purchase we had made. We sipped our wine quietly slipping back into an
old comfortable feeling.

"Thanks for
coming over. When I saw you last night, I realized how much I've missed you and
these quiet moments," Allison said.

"I've missed
them, too," and when I said it, I realized that it was true. We had been
together for a long time. I looked at her shiny hair and gave it a slight pat.

"What happened
to us, Eddie?" She looked at me with tears forming in her large brown
eyes.

"Oh, Ally, who
knows?" I said  pulling her close to my chest.

She began tentatively
kissing my neck, and I was astounded by the intense pleasure of her lips
against my skin. I lifted her face to mine, and we kissed for one long
languorous moment. I forgot about everything, except wondering about how far
away the bedroom was or whether Allison would agree to making love on the couch
unlike during our marriage. I definitely forgot about our divorce and about
Kelsey in this moment of intense rediscovery of my lost lover.

"Ed, oh,
Ed," she whispered over and over again in my ear when our lips finally
stopped their journey down memory lane.

I pulled the sweater
over her head and looked at her small yet firm breasts still encased in their
white bra that I managed to remove quicker than I'd ever done anything in my
life.

"Ally, is this
all right? I've missed you so much." I was overwhelmed at the sight and
smell of her and wanted to possess her completely now.

"Hurry, please
hurry," she said in answer as she began unbuttoning and unzipping the
clothes still covering me.

When we finished, we
lay back down together on the couch and tried to regain our breath. I pulled
the afghan that rested on the back of the couch over our bodies so we could lie
there peacefully reveling in the beauty and calm afterglow of spontaneous sex.

"What about
Kelsey?" Allison asked.

"What about
her?" The first stab of guilt hit me.

"What will you
tell her? How will you tell her?"

"Tell her? Tell
her what?" I didn't understand what she meant.

"Tell her about
us. You two don't belong together. That was painfully obvious last night. You
can't go on living with her now that we’ve rediscovered each other.” She
faltered when she looked at my face that must have registered disbelief.

"Ally, this was
wonderful, but it doesn't change anything," I said.

Immediately, Allison
got up and began pulling on her jeans and sweater. She became the steel trap of
yesterday, cool and reserved.

"You better go,
Ed," she said as she threw my clothes on top of me.

"Come on, Ally,
you couldn't have believed that I'd leave Kelsey and move back here?" I
asked.

"Just go,
please," she said as she walked up the stairs. "Just tell me one
thing, Ed. Did you ever cheat on me like you just did on Kelsey?" Then she
started up the stairs again not waiting for my reply.

She wouldn't have
believed me if I had told her the truth. I had never even contemplated
adultery. Today had been the first time, and it was totally unexpected and
unplanned on my part. I didn't feel particularly bad about it except for
hurting Allison and the potential of hurting Kelsey if she ever found out. What
Allison and I had done seemed quite natural. I saw it as a spiritual meeting of
two people who had once loved each other very much. I couldn't understand why
Allison didn't view it in the same way.

I headed home
grateful for the several hours I had to recover before Kelsey came home. She
usually worked until seven or eight at the office. We rarely even ate dinner
together anymore.

When I pulled in the
driveway, I saw Elizabeth's car parked out front. When I got out of my car, she
opened her driver's door and yelled over to me.